Climate
Change is the greatest threat to face humankind in all of
history. There are actions that can be taken to alleviate
the severe effects of this sudden change. Every one of these actions
has the additional benefit of forcing us to reexamine our approach
to the economy, health, foreign policy, and cultural identity. There
are vested interests in our leadership and infrastructure that would
have us delay a response to the evidence of climate change. But to
ignore this growing threat is to betray future generations, to deny
our children hope and stability. There may still be time, but we are
running out of road.

"In
this era of the internet and instant global communication, young people
may be capable
of finding ways to galvanize stewardship for our planet that has so
far been lacking." —James
Hansen

“We
need not fear for our planet. It was here before us and most likely
will be here after us.
But that doesn’t mean that the human race is not at serious
risk.”
—VACLAV
HAVEL

6/25/112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
"Given that greenhouse gases are well known to hold energy close to the Earth, those who deny a human-caused impact on weather need to pose a viable mechanism of how the Earth can hold in more energy and the weather not be changed. Think about it."

MAINSTREAM MEDIA continues to report on individual incidents and make no connection between them: Read these headlines. Do you not see a pattern of stresses predicted by every "end of oil / climate change" tome of the last 2o years. The future is now. The weather is increasingly erratic and flooding is more and more common, threatening our landmark cities, and the quest for fossil fuels is increasingly dangerous and costly.

12/07/09Why Copenhagen May Be a DisasterBecause climate change is not like any other issue we’ve ever dealt with. Because the adversary here is not Republicans, or socialists, or deficits, or taxes, or misogyny, or racism, or any of the problems we normally face -- adversaries that can change over time, or be worn down, or disproved, or cast off. The adversary here is physics.

3/09/09Thomas Friedman“We are taking a system operating past its capacity and driving it faster and harder,” he wrote me. “No matter how wonderful the system is, the laws of physics and biology still apply.”

1/16/12Climate Proposal Puts Practicality Ahead of Sacrifice
... researchers determined the 14 most effective measures for reducing climate change, like encouraging a switch to cleaner diesel engines and cookstoves, building more efficient kilns and coke ovens, capturing methane at landfills and oil wells, and reducing methane emissions from rice paddies by draining them more often.

If these strategies became widespread, the researchers calculate, the amount of global warming in 2050 would be reduced by about one degree Fahrenheit, roughly a third of the warming projected if nothing is done. This impact on temperatures in 2050 would be significantly larger than the projected impact of the commonly proposed measures for reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

12/07/0956 Papers in 45 Countries Publish Joint EditorialOvercoming climate change will take a triumph of optimism over pessimism, of vision over short-sightedness, of what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature".An Affordable TruthThe truth is that conservatives who predict economic doom if we try to fight climate change are betraying their own principles. They claim to believe that capitalism is infinitely adaptable, that the magic of the marketplace can deal with any problem. But for some reason they insist that cap and trade — a system specifically designed to bring the power of market incentives to bear on environmental problems — can’t work.

12/06/09 Cap and FadeThere is a better alternative, one that would be more efficient and less costly than cap and trade: “fee and dividend.” Under this approach, a gradually rising carbon fee would be collected at the mine or port of entry for each fossil fuel (coal, oil and gas). The fee would be uniform, a certain number of dollars per ton of carbon dioxide in the fuel. The public would not directly pay any fee, but the price of goods would rise in proportion to how much carbon-emitting fuel is used in their production.

All of the collected fees would then be distributed to the public. Prudent people would use their dividend wisely, adjusting their lifestyle, choice of vehicle and so on. Those who do better than average in choosing less-polluting goods would receive more in the dividend than they pay in added costs.

The Compressed Air Car developed by Motor Development International (MDI) Founder Guy Negre might be the best thing to have happened to the motor engine in years.

The $12,700 CityCAT, one of the planned Air Car models, can hit 68 mph and has a range of 125 miles. It will take only a few minutes for the CityCAT to refuel at gas stations equipped with custom air compressor units. MDI says it should cost only around $2 to fill the car up with 340 liters of air!

Newt
Ginggrich scolds liberals for their partisanship and
hysteria before listing solutions to environmental problems
found in every book already published on this subject.
Still, if it gets the message to the conservative set,
then bring it on. Emphasizing business, market and entrepreneurial
solutions, there is something for the capitalist in
you here.

I’ve
never been an environmental activist. I’ve
always assumed that rich people would not permit
the conditions sustaining their wealth to be destroyed-
that capital itself would intervene to prevent ecological
disaster.